School kids bung up the Web

Chain email project for geography lesson proves too much for servers to handle

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A group of school children in Canada have learnt a valuable lesson about Netiquette after a school project they were working on went horribly wrong. Children in the fifth grade at Mill Cove Elementary School, Nova Scotia, wanted to track the progress of a single email to see how far it would travel around the globe. But as their chain email was forwarded to more and more people, their mail server was unable to cope with the torrent of replies they received. "The response has been absolutely overwhelming!" wrote the children on their Web site. "We received 9000 messages within the first week alone. They were coming in at a rate of about 150 per hour! Our inbox was flooded, and our computer was unable to handle the tremendous amount of email." In their keenness to explore the wonders of the Internet, this particular class of would-be Internauts was simply unaware of the potential repercussions of sending such a message. The school's ISP, Global Linx, has decided to reject all electronic mail sent to the class email address until the torrent slows to a manageable trickle. Staff and students of Mill Cove School have apologised for any trouble they may have caused. ®